Fish product and method of forming same



Patented July 29, 1952 OFFICE FISIH PRODUCT AND METHQDIVOYF. j I

FORMING SAME Alan Osbourne, Cabin John, Md.

uo'nmwingl Application March 25, 19 52, 1 A Serial No.278,510

- .11 Claims. 1 a

The present invention relates to fish and a method of treatin the sameto remove odors-and typically fish tasteand to impart thereto adesirably improved taste such ass meat taste, v v The primary object ofthe present invention is to treat various types @f .Zfish, includingshellfish,

to remove therefromtypical tasteimparfcing-eomponents such as thenatural fish juices and oils ofv which the oil contains most of thetyhicalfish tasting components and to return to the fis an oil which ismore saturated in hydrogen than the unsaturated oils removed.

Another object is to convert the fish-oils both the fish oils and juicesto desirably tasting materials and to return them to the fish pr d It is.a further object to. give :to. the fi h, or retain for fish, adesirable mea y ta t by fi removing the fish tasting co ponents from thebody of the fish and et r m ereto a .meat tasting component.

It is a further obieflt to give fish a meaty taste I without the use (ofn tura meat c m one ts- It is a further object to convert unstabl fistas e mparting oil of fis to more st e 0 1 and return the same to thefish body. this way, semi-edible fish such as gmenhaden, and full grownpilchard, which have a low sales price due to the strong oils can besold for a good price.

According :to the preferred practice of the present invention, rawfishare first cooked either completely 501' partly to vfree the sameentirely or substantially entirely from s unstable oils and tasteimparting juices, After the juices and oils are removed from the fish,they may be separated from each other. Thereaft p fera ftheloil istreated to at least partially saturate the .samexby hydrogenation andthe oil and fat are .then returned to the fish body. The Juicescon-:taining gelatinous materials may be discarded, :but the juices maybe-purified byrfiltmtiQniby absorption to remove taste impartingomponents and returned to the fish, together with the oil if desired.The ldeod'orized and tasteless .oil and juices may be: (separately:readded tostjhefish, or they may be emulsified one with the other, andreturned to the fish in such manner, to he with desirable meaty tasteimparting components with :or without other flavoring vorseason-ing,materials as may be desired. The final product as ;.described may :behermetically sealed in .cans, metal 11111385,:0! othercon-ta-i-ners, ;ormay be dried and/or smoked, .ormixed to a paste or spread ,to :a finalpalatable product and stored as .such;; The lower grade material can beprepared as an animal :food such as chicken feed, that .will -;'n o t.give

the chicken flesh a fishy taste.

invention, the fish, whole, suitably divided, or

ground up, is cooked for a short period of time as by boiling in water,or by steaming, baking or stewing for a, period at least sufficient tosoften the fish meat and release all or a substantial portionof thejuices and oils. Such cooking period may range from 15 minutes to 1hours, depending upon the type of fish, i. e., the quantity of fatconta'med therein, and thetemperature of cooking which may be at theboiling point of water, where the fish is boiled in water at atmosphericpressure, or at higher temperatures when the fish is cooked by steamwith pressure ranging up to 400 F. Somewhat lower temperatures will beuseful beginning about 75C. Where less than atmospheric pressureconditions are used.

After cooking, the fish is separated from. the juices by extraction,pressing or centrifuging, preferably by centrifuging, and inthis'operation the fatty materials and oils may be separated from .theaqueous juices as part of the same operation or the juices and fats maybe separated in a subsequent step. 7 I H Alternatively, the cooked andfinely divided fish mayth'en be dehydrated in the air or in vacuum andthen the fish oil be extracted with solvents such as petroleum ether, ornoninfiammavble solvents. The fish are then heated to drive off alltraced the solvents. I

The fatwand oil is preferably then directly, or

atter first filtering through absorbents, hydrogenated under pressure,for example, about 1-00 atmospheres in the presence of a nickel, orother typical hydrogenation catalyst to effect substantial; if notcomplete, saturation of the fat. While complete saturation with hydrogenmay be ieffected, it is unnecessary to saturate'the fatty oils 7 beyondthat necessary to remove by saturation the most highly unsaturatedcomponents such as the drying and semiedryin components of the oll. Thehydrogenated product as such, with or without further additions ofseasoning materials and vitamins, may then be blended with a meatytasting component such as the proteinaceous extract of soybean .orsodium glutamate, or both.

In an alternative, but less economic procedure, the fish after havingits highly'unsaturated taste imparting oils withdrawn may have addedthere- .to oils from other sources more saturated than the fish oilswhich are chemically equivalent to hydrogenated or partiallyhydrogenated fishbils. Thus such unsaturated oils as corn oil, peanutoil, olive oil, cotton seed oil, or blends thereof may be added to thefish base from which all fish tasting components have been withdrawn.

It will be understood that these preferred taste imparting materials arenot meat products, but are generally remotely derived and merely tastelike meat since true meat derivatives are sometimes objectionable;however, where meat is not actually objectionable, a true meat extractmay be used to supply the meat taste. The oil and meat tastingcomponent, together with seasoning, is then added in a fluid state tothe fish.

As noted above, the aqueous juices which contain little of the fishtaste component may be admixed by emulsification with the hydrogenatedoil and the meat tasting component and seasoning prior to adding thesame to the fish base. However, the aqueous When the juices are used,the same may be purified as by filtration prior to'admixing the samewith the hydrogenated oil. In another alternative, a synthetic aqueousjuice may be formed by blending gelatin, water and seasoning salts whichproduct is then blended with'the hydrogenated oil and the blends finallyreturned to the a coloring material may be fish base. If desired,

juices. may be omitted,

leaving the fish tasting components as and sodium glutamate to obtain aproduct which will set to a fairly weak gel, such product is then Fish,after removal of all of the natural oil described in Example 1, hasadded thereto 5% by weight of olive oil.

Example 5 i 7 Fish are treated as in Example 1 to remove the blendedwith the refined oil, juices or both to give the final fish product anattractive appearance.

I Example 1 r Clean pilchard, which may be deboned and ground intopaste, is boiled at atmospheric pressure for 45 minutes in anapproximately equal volume of water. Thereafter, the fish is placed in acentrifuge and centrifuged until all empirically free juices and oilsare removed to obtain separately the fish, oils and juices. The oil isplaced in a pressure container typically used for hydrogenation andshaken or otherwise agitated for 2 hours with hydrogen under pressure of50 atmospheres in the presence of finely divided reduced nickel. The oilis then blended with proteinaceous soybean extract to impart thereto ameaty taste and is then readded in a fluid state to the previouslycentrifuged fish base, the fish and oil is then hermetically sealed incans or jars. In this example, the hydrogenation may be effected byother typical hydrogenation processes. If desired, the final product maybe further dried and packaged with hermetic sealing. The final productmay also be dried and packaged or smoked and packaged without hermeticsealing.

Other types of fish, which may be in a form other;

than paste, such as fillets, may be similarly treated.

Example 2 The aqueous juices obtained according to the procedure of thefirst example is concentrated to about 50% of its normal volume and theproduct thereof is emulsified with the hydrogenated oil and the meatytasting component, and the mixture is then readded to the fish base asdescribed in Examplel. In this example sodium glutamate may be added tothe juice concentrate prior to emulsifying with the hydrogenated oil inwhich case the meat taste imparting substance of the first example maybe omitted. In either of Example 1 or 2, further addition of vegetablecoloring may be made to the fish product or to the oils or juices beforeor after blending. It will be understood that in either of the examplesthe oil 'or juices may be filtered through an absorbent such asdiatomaceous earth or charcoal, etc., prior to or after concentrating orhydrogenating.

Example 3 associated with oil blended with 5% quantity of sodium fishtasting oils and juices and has returned thereto 5% by weight of amixture of cotton seed of a juice containing a small 7 glutamatesufiicient to fiavor.

Various modifications of the present invention will occur to thoseskilled in the art, and it is intended that the disclosure herein givenbe regarded as merely' exemplary and not limiting since various fishproducts may be treated by the present method,-seasoned by variousmethods and seasoning agents and stored and marketed with or withoutfurther addition of stabilizers, antioxidants, preservatives; etc. It isaccordingly intended that the invention be interpreted. as broadlyasdefined in the claims. This application is a continuation in part of 'my1co-pending application No. 85,059, now abandoned.

I claim: 1 I

1. A fish product formed by removing the taste imparting fats and oilsfrom the fish, hydrogenating the oils and fats removed from thefish to adegree sufiicient to destroy taste imparting components andhomogeneously reblending'the taste free oils and fats thus treatedwiththe fish to form a tasteless fish base and finally adding adesirable flavoring thereto.

2. The fish product defined in claim 1 whereinthe flavoring is sodiumglutamate.

3. The product is defined in claim 1 which has been hermetically sealedin containers. i

4. The product as defined in claim 1 which has been comminuted to a fishpaste.

5. The product as defined in claim 1 which has been further smoked anddried.

6. Method of removing the taste and odor normally associated with fishcomprising removing from the fish all of the normal oils, fats andjuices, associated with the fish hydrogenating the oils and fats, addinga meat flavoring component to said oils and fats and returning the sameto the fishbase.

7. Method of removing the taste and odor normally associated with fishcomprising removing from' the fish the normal oils, fats and juices,

the fish, at least partly hydrogenating the oil and fat to remove thehighly unsaturated components thereof, reblending the hydrogenated oiland the juices, adding theretoa desirably tasting component other than:fish and readding the blend to the fish base.

8. Method as defined in claim 7 wherein the ceous soybean extract.

9. Method as defined in claim 7 wherein the flavoring component is meattasting sodium glutamate;

10. Method of treating fish comprising heating the fish to free oils andjuices from the fish meat, centrifuging the oils and juices from themeat, hydrogenating the oils to remove the fish tasting components,adding to thehydrogenated oil a meat tasting component and reblendingthe same withthefishbase. l

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the file ofthis patent:

Number 6 3 UNITED STATES PATENTS Name Date Stafiord June 15, 1915 HillerApr. 8, 1924 David Sept. 22, 1936 Ash et a1 Aug. 3, 1937 Lilly Dec. '7,1948 OTHER REFERENCES 10 Food Packer, July 1948, page 30, articleentitled Monosodium Glutamate.

1. A FISH PRODUCT FORMED BY REMOVING THE TASTE IMPARTING FATS AND OILSFROM THE FISH, HYDROGENATING THE OILS AND FATS REMOVED FROM THE FISH TOA DEGREE SUFFICIENT TO DESTROY TASTE IMPARTING COMPONENTS ANDHOMOGENEOUSLY REBIENDING THE TASTE FREE OILS AND FATS THUS TREATED WITHTHE FISH TO FORM A TASTELESS FISH BASE AND FINALLY ADDING A DESIRABLEFLAVORING THERETO.